Journal of Housing and the Built Environment最新文献

This article investigates evictions and housing stability specifically among Latina and immigrant mothers in Salt Lake City, Utah utilizing a gender lens. This is a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project in partnership with Community Voices for Housing Equality (CVHE). Researcher-participants from CVHE, a non-incorporated community group of social workers, residents, students, and professors from the University of Utah, were concerned about the climate of hostility that was felt toward those living in west side neighborhoods where most immigrants, refugees, and people of color live. The data for the study is drawn from 20 Latinas—nine (9) one-on-one interviews and a focus group with 11 participants as well as a community workshop with the same participants where researchers invited staff from the Disability Law Center to discuss with participants’ legal questions that emerged during the focus group. The main findings of the study were that many of the participants were unsure or completely unaware of their rights as tenants. The majority of them felt they had been a victim of housing discrimination at least once, much of it stemming from difficulty with language barriers between themselves and their landlords or property managers. The absence of written contracts and tendency to search out housing where extensive background checks were not required, resulted in many participants living in month-to-month arrangements, leaving them vulnerable housing instability and fearing an eviction. Moreover, many participants expressed being powerless to law changes in eviction and tenant-landlord relations.

The literature on sustainable housing is becoming increasingly popular around the world. Empirical research, however, does not acknowledge the existence of a comprehensive and unified approach to sustainable housing goals. It is still unclear if the mindset toward sustainable housing is rooted enough among various stakeholder groups to allow going beyond the concept of energy-efficient developments. That is why the study focuses on examining the perception of sustainable housing goals among future home buyers. The analysis presented in this paper comprises two stages. First, the analytical hierarchy process is used to assess the relative importance of the three main dimensions of sustainable housing, which are: economic, ecological, and social dimensions. Secondly, based on the emerged clusters, willingness to pay for the improvement of the chosen parameters of the residential building is verified. Regarding the adopted research approach, four homogeneous groups of future home buyers have been identified, namely ecologically oriented, socially oriented, cost-saving oriented, and mixed. The results of the study also reveal that the most appealing to future home buyers are the ecological and economic aspects, while the social ones still require further research. The article contributes to a better understanding of the process of sustainable housing development among potential home buyers, and what may be relevant to different stakeholders engaged in the process of sustainable development. Each of the stakeholder groups, starting from households via developers and policy-makers to academia, plays a specific role in this process.

The input–output efficiency of China’s Housing Provident Fund (HPF) program has received increasing academic attention in recent years. However, few studies have been conducted to examine its temporal-spatial variations and influencing factors. To fill the gaps, this study first used a DEA model to measure the input–output efficiency of HPF of 287 Chinese cities from 2015 to 2020, and then employed the Tobit regression model to determine the main influencing factors. Results indicate: (1) China's HPF input–output efficiency grew consistently from 2015 to 2020, remaining relatively high even during the Covid-19 outbreak. (2) HPF's efficiency displays notable spatial variation, with values higher in the eastern region and large cities compared to the western/central areas and medium/small cities. (3) Macroeconomic factors, housing market conditions, and HPF management elements significantly influence HPF efficiency, yet specific impacts vary; some factors (e.g., housing prices, capital investment intensity, fund utilization level) are positive, while others (housing price-to-income ratios, commercial housing loan interest rates, number of contributing employees) are negative. This study enhances understanding of HPF efficiency over time and space in China, offering insights for policy reform and system enhancement.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted homeworking to become a ‘new normal’. Consequently, the effects of various homeworking-related housing attributes on housing prices may be changed. However, few studies have explicitly examined if and how the practice of homeworking changes the associations between these particular housing attributes and housing prices. In light of this, based on a database of 2-year property transaction records in Guangzhou, China, this study develops several multilevel hedonic price models and multilevel difference-in-differences (DID) hedonic price models to delve into the COVID-19-induced variations in such housing attributes-housing prices associations. Our findings are as follows. (1) The practice of homeworking seems not to have fundamentally changed the effects of homeworking-related housing attributes on housing prices (suggested by the unchanged coefficient directions between pre- and post-COVID models); (2) Significant differences do exist in magnitudes of the effects of homeworking-related housing attributes on housing prices between pre- and post-COVID periods; (3) Those attributes (associated with homeworking space, convenient commute between workplace and home, and necessary needs of daily shopping and services) that facilitate homeworking tend to have higher price premiums and/or lower price discounts. This study provides novel evidence on hedonic price effects of homeworking in housing markets and their variations from pre-COVID to Post-COVID periods, which enriches the recently heated debates on property market responses to COVID-19.

Due to the growing importance of accessibility to urban amenities on quality of life and neighborhood satisfaction in South Korea, various efforts have been made to improve accessibility to urban amenities by establishing a minimum standard, an approach called Living Social Overhead Capital (Living SOC); for example, one such standards states that an elementary school should be reachable within a 15-min walk. However, these endeavors have not yet resulted in an equal distribution of Living SOC in urban and rural areas. Many residents feel the disparity of Living SOC is greatest in areas where the rural city was incorporated into an adjacent urban city—often called an integrated urban–rural city—or when new towns were developed in rural cities. This situation can lead to the creation of dissimilar landscapes and infrastructure within a single city. As such, this research observes how the resultant disparity in proximity between urban and rural areas impacts neighborhood satisfaction, as reflected in housing prices. The outcomes indicate that, with the exception of senior care and education, all observed amenities were found to be located closer to residences in urban areas. Additionally, the closer the Living SOC, the higher the housing prices. The findings of this study posit an urgent need for a comprehensive Living SOC plan for entire cities, not only for newly developed areas, to avoid widening the existing gap between urban and rural Living SOC.

In recent decades, various programs have been developed as part of Chile’s housing policies to respond to the housing deficit. Most policies have so far focused on addressing the quantitative, qualitative, and urban deficits, neglecting the social dimension of housing. At the same time, the concept of collaborative housing has been referred to as a possible alternative to respond to these social challenges by fostering social cohesion, collaboration, and mutual aid. This article explores how collaborative housing can tackle the social deficit of housing. Here, we conceptualise this deficit as ‘the lack of non-physical or intangible social characteristics given among residents of a project, such as trust, social cohesion, and a sense of community, necessary for housing to be considered adequate.’ We examined the relation between these two concepts by developing a theoretical and empirical study. The first consisted of a theoretical framework and a review of literature on collaborative housing’s response to the social deficit of housing. Second, we interviewed stakeholders from two study cases. We found that residents in both collaborative housing cases perceive an improvement in their social interactions, sociability, trust, and sense of community in their current homes compared to previous homes. Therefore, we conclude that collaborative housing presents opportunities to tackle the social deficit of housing.

The main objective of the study is to verify whether architectural design elements affect mental and physical health from the perspective of nursing homes’ preparedness to face unpredictable situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which gave rise to the need of rethinking the design of nursing homes to provide quality living environments that enable older adults to live healthy, safe, and socially inclusive lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing homes were among the most critical types of housing. Various safety measures were taken to protect the physical health of residents, which, at the same time, had a negative impact on their mental health, mainly due to isolation and social distancing. The current study was carried out using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. A literature review, a detailed analysis of selected nursing homes, an online survey of nursing home managers, and on-site work served as the basis for the development of the comprehensive design quality assessment tool “Safe and Connected”, which was further tested on four selected case studies. The cases were selected on the basis of seven independent variables, i.e. nursing home capacity, residential density, floor area, the year of construction and typology, purpose-built construction regarding use and location, and one dependent variable, i.e. nursing home infection rate. The assessment results of the SC tool were verified against two additional analyses: infection rate data and a resident quality of life survey. The results show the coincidence of the “Safe and Connected” design quality marks and rates of infected residents and quality of life survey results for the observed nursing homes. It can be concluded that the design of the residential environment is identified as one of the possible factors influencing the quality of life in nursing homes. Furthermore, understanding the architectural design elements involved in the perception of risks for, and well-being of, residents may be helpful for decision makers, managers, architects, and investors to make sensible decisions when planning and maintaining nursing home facilities in the post-COVID era.

The New Zealand housing market has become a public concern due to the significant surge in housing prices. The steep increase in housing prices has presented significant difficulties for individuals seeking homeownership, particularly for first-home buyers. Therefore, this research aims to identify the crucial factors of the New Zealand housing price system and their influence on housing prices. The system dynamics (SD) methodology was applied to organise the cause and effect variables into a causal loop diagram (CLD) illustrating the structure and interaction of the primary feedback mechanisms within the complex system of housing prices. Accordingly, population growth, macroeconomic stability, investment demand, monetary policy, and construction costs are key contributing factors to promoting affordable housing prices and increasing homeownership rates in New Zealand. The construction costs, including the land cost, are the most significant of all the factors. Hence, there is a call to prioritise optimising construction resources. This research’s developed model was validated by exploring experts’ views on the model’s components and system dynamics. The findings provide relevant stakeholders in New Zealand’s residential construction sector with solutions and guidelines for coping with supply and demand fluctuations and reducing economic cycles on material price and workforce development.

Abstract

This paper explores the role of housing in the achievement of prosperity from a capabilities perspective. Prosperity, according to Jackson (Prosperity without growth: economics for a finite planet, Earthscan, Oxford, 2009), is built on Amartya Sen’s notion of capabilities for flourishing. Then, in the pursuit of understanding the role of housing as an enabler of capabilities for the achievement of prosperity, this paper investigates the gaps in the views/concepts of housing through comparisons of the ten central capabilities, the right to adequate housing, and meanings of home. Data from a recent qualitative study in rural and urban Kenya is used for empirical analysis as a way to develop a localised application of the discussion. Looking through the lens of the Capabilities Approach brought a useful framework that made it possible to capture human and social housing values that are many times neglected. In that sense, the paper explores housing both as the physical conditions of the house and as the social and psychological dynamics that construct the meanings of home. The research demonstrated that the extent to which housing enables the enjoyment of capabilities for flourishing increases or diminishes insofar housing acknowledges and incorporates both material and non-material functions. Hopefully, this exercise can serve to inform and enrich future localised housing design, research and policy, where a more comprehensive understanding and conceptualisation of housing seems imperative: Housing, as House + Home.